Modified GT86 as a daily driver

Modified GT86 as a daily driver

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Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
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Hi guys,

Hoping for bit of a steer here.

I currently drive a 986S Porsche Boxster and have been resisting the need to get something more practical. I have a german shepherd dog who I take pretty much everywhere with me. She is quite happy in the passenger seat of the Boxster and we go around the country for days out and trips away together. That doesn't really leave much (any) room for another human being to come with me ... and I've just started dating a lady who does not have a car.

I knew this would happen eventually, and have spent months mulling over all sorts of options for something that's fun to drive, and allows me to take the dog, a person and a little luggage on a trip. Ideally I'd like a Boxster with back seats ... but a 911 feels like a lot of extra money for a very similar car.

So my thoughts turned to a GT86. They're a little more money than a Boxster, but a lot newer. Apparently they handle very well and are a lot of fun. The only fly in the ointment is the downgrade of the 3.2L flat 6 to a 2L flat 4 ... and the resulting drop in performance. I'm not much of a straight line hero, so not looking for much - the Boxster is 250bhp-ish and 1250-1300kg and that's absolutely fine for me. Therefore a GT86 with a supercharger/turbo conversion feels like an ideal match. It might not be quite as characterful as the flat 6, but it'll definitely match the performance.

Browsing adverts for GT86s, and there doesn't seem to be much of a premium for pre-converted cars ... therefore it makes sense to buy one pre-modded rather than buying a stock one and spending a chunk of change myself on the conversion. This is where I'm lacking in insider knowledge and turning to the collective wisdom here.

Firstly, are supercharged or turbocharged GT86s suitable for everyday driving duties? Are they reliable? Will the conversion make them grumpy in stop-start traffic, or generally bit of a pain in anything but full attack driving? Do I need to find a friendly MOT tester (do they even still exist?) to pass the emissions test? Or does it give an OEM+ feel where they retain 100% of their usability and reliability, just with a bit 'more' when you stretch the engine?

Secondly, are there hardware or mapping companies that have a particularly good or bad reputation .... i.e. if you see a turbo conversion from Company X, they are known for a quality install ... if you see it's been mapped by Company Y, then be wary as they've not got a great rep ... I know the PH forum rules can make it difficult to be negative about a company, but I'd be grateful for any and all insights people could give.

Thirdly, a lot of GT86s with a turbo/supercharger conversion appear to have additional modifications beyond just the conversion. Some of these are a matter of taste ... some are easily reversible ... but is there anything which would be detrimental to my enjoyment of the car? I'm thinking that a car lowered to within a knats pubic hair of the floor on rock solid suspension may well not be as fun down a bumpy b-road as a standard car ... but any real life insight that people can give would be appreciated.

Finally, in several of the adverts I've seen, they talk about having multiple maps which are switched between using the cruise control stalk. Does this disable the cruise control function? Or can it still be used as normal, and it's just a very specific combination of presses (which would do nothing on a stock car) that changes the maps.

Thanks for any help the collective forum wisdom can give.


Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
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Pic for attention. biggrin


spikyone

1,451 posts

100 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
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I have a SC GT86. Definitely usable as a daily, and yes, it just gives you a bit more oomph compared to stock. Mine is around 290bhp.

As standard they aren't the happiest things in stop-start traffic; the clutch has a high bite point and not much travel above it. Many have adjusted that and the return spring. I'd also be looking at a car with an upgraded clutch or planning to upgrade it; the Exedy is quite stock-feeling. Without an upgraded clutch you'll get some slip with forced induction, especially in higher gears.

Any other mods are going to be subjective. It's probably worth having a go in a standard car as a baseline, then you'll know whether a particular setup is an improvement or not.

You don't lose cruise control functionality from the switchable maps - it's a long pull on the lever to switch maps, then up and down toggles through them (shown on the rev counter). Pull again (or just wait) and cruise control goes back to normal functionality. Almost all mapped cars will have that function as it's part of the Ecutek system.
Each tuner will put different things on each map though, so check with the owner or original tuner.

Emissions - you'll be fine with the standard catalytic converters in place. With an aftermarket manifold the cat is usually deleted and it gets a bit more marginal. It should pass with just the one cat in the exhaust but you'll generally need it hot.

In terms of reputable tuners, Abbey and Fensport both do good SC conversions, Fensport and Tuning Developments do turbo. Abbey and TD could do the other setup but tend to be biased towards SC and turbo respectively. I think Fensport also err towards turbo. Those three tuners are the go-to places for the 86. Watch out for HKS superchargers as a negative, they didn't sell well here anyway but early ones had reliability issues.

General reliability should be OK up to about 290-300bhp. The weak point is the rods, and if the car's been tracked on very grippy tyres then potentially the oiling. On early cars that have had the valve spring recall, the recall sometimes resulted in silicone sealant in the oil galleries, causing the engine to seize. Toyota often tried to blame owners for the lack of oil and many had a fight to get their cars fixed. Make sure that if a car has had that recall done, it's covered a good few miles afterwards. That'll give you confidence they didn't cock it up. And don't be concerned if the valve spring recall is still outstanding. Failures from that issue - a bad batch of material - are almost unheard of, I'd rather not risk a bodged recall.

Otherwise I'd recommend buying a car as recent as you can afford. Toyota made small upgrades every year. Earlier cars had a problem with their wiring loom, which caused coil packs to fail occasionally under hard use due to heat. Forced induction will likely make that worse, and you need to replace the whole loom to fix it. Toyota updated the loom in 2014/2015 to avoid the problem; it's a tricky & costly job to fix an earlier car and most owners just suffer the cost of replacing them.
There's also not much variation in spec and there weren't many options - basically fancy seats, upgraded stereo, parking sensors and not much else. Even the "special edition" cars, TRD, and Aero offered nothing beyond cosmetics that you couldn't get on a "lesser" trim.

I think that's everything answered! The Facebook owners group and forums are a good place to get help and advice, but feel free to ask away here or drop me a PM if you want any more information.

Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
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Thank you for that. A very comprehensive reply. smile

Honeywell

1,374 posts

98 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
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I have a modified but NA GT86 and it works fine as a daily and I've had dog in the back of mine with the seats folded (a Labrador).

Fennsport have a good reputation as tuners and they've one lot of cars mine included.

Honeywell

1,374 posts

98 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
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They hi fi speakers a re awful. Focal do an off the shelf plug and play kit for something lke £170 which transforms the sound.

Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Thursday 23rd March 2023
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Thank you Honeywell. Some useful info there.

apx7

236 posts

110 months

Wednesday 29th November 2023
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The earlier HKS superchargers which suffered some issues have since been rectified and replaced. I ran one (V2) for about 3 years and around 18k miles without issue. A lot of people stick to the standard 0W-20 oil but I'd recommend 5W-30, and oil changes at between 5k and 7500 miles depending on the use your car sees.

Having gone through a turbo and SC, would recommend the SC kit as its far better suited to the character of the car. Recommend a baffled oil pan if you do go that route. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions etc, there are some things to be avoided, but don't want to name and shame on public forums. biglaugh

Edited by apx7 on Wednesday 29th November 21:59

aspen

1,419 posts

263 months

Saturday 9th December 2023
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Agree with the previous posts. Until recent purchase of an EV for commuting duties, I was using my supercharged 86 daily with very little drama. Main reason for retiring it from daily duties was fuel cost. Now spending about £40 a month on electricity instead of £400 on petrol.

EV also makes me appreciate the analogue nature of the 86 even more.

I don’t intend to sell it.

Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Tuesday 27th February
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Just to close this off ... after taking forever to make up my mind, I bought a GT86 last weekend.

It's got the TD stage 1 NA tuning package on, but otherwise pretty much stock.

In the end it was the insurance that tipped it for me. I'm early 40s and can insure pretty much anything reasonable for under 400 quid. But once you start getting into turbo and supercharger conversions, the price quotes seem to spiral out of all proportion to the performance gain.

In a straight line, it's definitely slower than the Porsche, but only by a tiny margin at the sort of B road speeds I spend a lot of my time on. I've also noticed there's a smaller power band, and a big difference in low down torque. The Porsche will happily potter along at 30mph in 6th at barely over idle (and pull cleanly - but slowly - from there), whereas the GT86 seems a bit flustered & about to bog down under 2k rpm in higher gears. It's not a criticism, just something to adapt to after nearly 5 years in the Boxster.

The GT86 is definitely a much busier drive - the gearing is much closer (the Boxster will do 70 in 2nd and 105 in 3rd), and you're up & down the box a lot more than in the Porsche. The ride is also a lot firmer in the GT86 - makes the Porsche almost seem like a GT (as in long distance cruiser ... not a GT3! smile ) car in comparison. Again, not a criticism, just an observation ... once I'm used to it, I think I'll enjoy the extra level of driver input.

The Toyota definitely seems like it'll be an interesting drive, I look forward to getting to know it and really learn how to get the best out of it. I don't think the slight drop in straight line performance is going to bug me ... but who knows. It'd be interesting to see how they compare round a track. My gut feel is that they'd be just about even over a lap, but making their time in different ways.

apx7

236 posts

110 months

Saturday 9th March
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Congrats OP wishing you many happy miles ahead, now show us some pictures. biggrin

If you plan to make further mods and improvements (potentially recommended depending on what the car has atm) worth making a readers cars thread. Is it running an aftermarket exhaust manifold? Would recommend (certain) coilovers for a better handling/ride balance.

Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Monday 11th March
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apx7 said:
Congrats OP wishing you many happy miles ahead, now show us some pictures. biggrin

If you plan to make further mods and improvements (potentially recommended depending on what the car has atm) worth making a readers cars thread. Is it running an aftermarket exhaust manifold? Would recommend (certain) coilovers for a better handling/ride balance.
Imagine a very standard black GT86. It looks like that! biglaugh

So the stage 1 TD tuning package is an unequal length manifold, an aftermarket overpipe, a K&N panel filter to go in the original airbox and a remap. Other than that, it's completely standard, but did come with some additional parts - a very fancy looking Invidia catback exhaust and a Miltek resonated decat pipe that I could choose to fit later if I want. With the stock exhaust on I feel the car is plenty loud enough for a 200bhp car, so not looking for any extra noise. And while I've done the decat hokey-kokey at MOT time in the past, I'm wondering if I'm getting a little old for such shenanigans. So unless those two freed up considerable ponies, I'm unlikely to bother fitting them.

Compared to the Boxster, the GT86 feels very firm and crashy, especially on poor road surfaces. Any suspension changes would need to improve that, whereas it seems a large percentage of GT86 owners merely want their car as low as it can possibly go, and so a lot of aftermarket solutions cater to that.

apx7

236 posts

110 months

Tuesday 12th March
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Rotary Potato said:
Imagine a very standard black GT86. It looks like that! biglaugh

So the stage 1 TD tuning package is an unequal length manifold, an aftermarket overpipe, a K&N panel filter to go in the original airbox and a remap. Other than that, it's completely standard, but did come with some additional parts - a very fancy looking Invidia catback exhaust and a Miltek resonated decat pipe that I could choose to fit later if I want. With the stock exhaust on I feel the car is plenty loud enough for a 200bhp car, so not looking for any extra noise. And while I've done the decat hokey-kokey at MOT time in the past, I'm wondering if I'm getting a little old for such shenanigans. So unless those two freed up considerable ponies, I'm unlikely to bother fitting them.

Compared to the Boxster, the GT86 feels very firm and crashy, especially on poor road surfaces. Any suspension changes would need to improve that, whereas it seems a large percentage of GT86 owners merely want their car as low as it can possibly go, and so a lot of aftermarket solutions cater to that.
Fair enough. You can get a little extra power and torque but if you want to keep things quiet I'd recommend a high flow cat and resonated exhaust. Is the Invidia system the one with a large muffler or 2 smaller cans?

As for ride, coilovers definitely help overall in my opinion. Just avoid the stuff designed for max low stance (BC, HSD, etc). Would recomend Tein Advance Z if you want to get a slight drop and improve handling while retaining comfor, They are quite budget friendly and work out a little more than just 4 replacement OEM struts. Depending on the mileage and the kind of use the car saw over its life I'd also recommend some new bushes etc. Between the short wheelbase and not having much rear suspension travel the car can get quite crashy on OEM suspension, especially as it gets leggy. If your car hasn't got them I'd also recommend at least some front camber bolts, really helps the handling and feel. Any plans for aftermarket wheels?

If you're relatively local to the midlands feel free to compare with my setup (everchanging) and go from there. If you need any specific recommendations etc just drop me a message. biggrin

Edited by apx7 on Tuesday 12th March 00:16

Rotary Potato

Original Poster:

247 posts

96 months

Wednesday 13th March
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apx7 said:
Fair enough. You can get a little extra power and torque but if you want to keep things quiet I'd recommend a high flow cat and resonated exhaust. Is the Invidia system the one with a large muffler or 2 smaller cans?

As for ride, coilovers definitely help overall in my opinion. Just avoid the stuff designed for max low stance (BC, HSD, etc). Would recomend Tein Advance Z if you want to get a slight drop and improve handling while retaining comfor, They are quite budget friendly and work out a little more than just 4 replacement OEM struts. Depending on the mileage and the kind of use the car saw over its life I'd also recommend some new bushes etc. Between the short wheelbase and not having much rear suspension travel the car can get quite crashy on OEM suspension, especially as it gets leggy. If your car hasn't got them I'd also recommend at least some front camber bolts, really helps the handling and feel. Any plans for aftermarket wheels?

If you're relatively local to the midlands feel free to compare with my setup (everchanging) and go from there. If you need any specific recommendations etc just drop me a message. biggrin

Edited by apx7 on Tuesday 12th March 00:16
I am very local to the midlands. Just south-west of Coventry.

As for the exhaust, it has 2 small back boxes stacked on top of each other, 1 for each tailpipe. A quick google and I think it's called the R400 Gemini system and seems to retail for an eye watering amount of money for some shiny bent pipes! biggrin

The car has just over 50k miles (on a 63 plate), which makes it by far the least leggy car I've ever owned. However, the previous owner modified it before putting it back to stock-ish to sell it, so I have no idea how many miles the suspension was off the car for. I'll have a poke round under there when the weather warms up. Your thoughts on suspension setups are very useful.

The thing with aftermarket wheels is that to get something lighter and as strong as the average OEM, you usually need to dip pretty deep into your pocket ... and I'm not really driven by asthetics, so unless the right thing came along at the right price, I probably wouldn't consider changing them. Are the stock wheels particularly heavy or something? Just wondering why you asked ... smile



apx7

236 posts

110 months

Friday 15th March
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Rotary Potato said:
I am very local to the midlands. Just south-west of Coventry.

As for the exhaust, it has 2 small back boxes stacked on top of each other, 1 for each tailpipe. A quick google and I think it's called the R400 Gemini system and seems to retail for an eye watering amount of money for some shiny bent pipes! biggrin

The car has just over 50k miles (on a 63 plate), which makes it by far the least leggy car I've ever owned. However, the previous owner modified it before putting it back to stock-ish to sell it, so I have no idea how many miles the suspension was off the car for. I'll have a poke round under there when the weather warms up. Your thoughts on suspension setups are very useful.

The thing with aftermarket wheels is that to get something lighter and as strong as the average OEM, you usually need to dip pretty deep into your pocket ... and I'm not really driven by asthetics, so unless the right thing came along at the right price, I probably wouldn't consider changing them. Are the stock wheels particularly heavy or something? Just wondering why you asked ... smile
I see, the R400 is indeed pricey but a quality system. Upto you whether you decide to keep it or part ways but if I recall its about in the middle of the Invidia range, with some added noise and a deeper tone but not droney or overbearing like the N1. The Q300 meanwhile is quite a bit more subdued and only a little louder than stock. Ran both of them previously.

50k is relatively low, but have a poke around under the car next time you get a chance, and I suppose if things feel a bit loose or make some noise that too would be an indicator for replacement. Things like droplinks, control arms etc are cheap enough to replace if they start to feel tired on the car.

In my opinion wheels play a big part in aesthetics for the car along with a mild drop to give it a better stance and fill the arches. The factory wheels weigh about 9kg, I've ran various different Weds and Rays on mine ranging from 8kg to 9.5kg. Your more bduget oriented brands will differ though, and they usually come in around 10.5kg or higher for an 18x9.5 wheel. Many wheel brands and not just reps but even "named" ones will advertise various certifications, etc for their product which they were never tested for it and thus would never pass so would be careful on that front.

If you didn't want to go too wide, 18x 8.5" to 9" wide with a 245/35/18 square setup is pretty good for the car, extra grip but still able to move the rear end around. Happy to discuss wheels in detail if you prefer, or anything else.